FBO Marketing, Part 2: Affordable Promotions

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As any FBO owner or operator knows, attracting new customers and keeping current customers is the lifeblood of your business.

In previous blog posts, we have discussed the aspects of keeping current customers by providing an exceptional customer service experience: Be the restaurant owner, and don’t forget the cheese!

In this multipart series, we talk about attracting new customers with little or no cost. In Part 1, Low- or No-Cost Promotions, we discussed the basics of promoting your FBO on a limited budget. In this post, we’ll talk about public and media relations as an affordable promotion that will help extend your brand reach even further.

Public and Media Relations

Writing and distributing a news release is a cost-effective communications tool. However, there are some basic guidelines that FBOs need to follow in order to ensure their announcements make their way to the selected media.

1. Ask yourself if the news is newsworthy.

Many companies, including FBOs, will send a news release out on everything that happens at their place of business. Trouble is, most of it is not newsworthy and, therefore, gets ignored. If you do too many of these, there is a chance that when you have something that is truly newsworthy, it may get passed over because of your past history. 

Editors and writers keep very busy, so only offer announcements that are at least potentially newsworthy. Here are a few ideas that most editors find of interest:

  • New facilities or expansion of current facilities
  • Any significant renovations
  • Acquisitions of other facilities on your airport or other FBOs
  • Key personnel changes to your organizations

Here are some things editors would rather not see:

  • Announcements about a new web site
  • Releases that are not timely or current
  • News that is completely off target and irrelevant to the industry

2. Be clear and concise.

In journalism school, you learn to write in an "inverted pyramid" style. In other words, say what is most important in the first sentence or paragraph.

  • Then support the main information with other facts and figures. Think of the five “Ws”: Who, what, where, when and why?
  • Include a relevant quote by a key manager or employee
  • Follow up with what we call a “boilerplate” that is a concise overview of your company information, the services you provide and your contact information.
  • Keep the information as short as possible, and don’t use flowery language.

3. Include a photo if possible.

  • Use a fairly good camera. Make sure the photos are in focus and of high resolution. Most publications request a resolution of 300 dpi.
  • Frame your photo so you are not too far from your subject.
  • Watch out for background clutter. This is particularly important when you shoot a photo of an employee for what we call a ‘head shot’. I’ve seen photos taken against a wall with a clock in the background, pictures, bright colored paintings and even model aircraft that look like the airplane is flying right out of the person’s head.

4. Timely and relevant: Think outside the box!

Earlier, we talked about being timely and relevant with your information. A couple of years ago, I worked with one of my clients on a short news release relating to the popular green movement. They had just replaced all their gas powered ramp courtesy carts/golf carts with state-of-the art electric carts. They also invested in a new ramp sweeper to pick up FOD.

For this announcement, I took a photo of their new cars along with the ramp sweeper, and framed it with an aircraft in the background to add relevance to the aviation market. I also used their distinctive terminal building with company logo as a backdrop. As they say, a photo is worth a thousand words.

Then I issued the photo with a photo caption only, not as a long news release. Of course I included details about “going green” on the ramp. This announcement was picked up by many on the media database.

Media Database

Now that you’ve crafted your new release, it’s time to send it out to a qualified database. First of all, you should always send it out to your local media, including newspapers and business journals. Also include local TV and radio if possible. You never know when someone needs a story like the one you send in or maybe just a filler story.

Also, you should build a list of aviation writers and editors. You can find these contacts in the front part of magazines and newspapers in what they call the masthead. Also, for most media, you can go to their web sites and get either specific email addresses or a generic one that goes to their news department. 

And don’t forget the electronic newsletters, like acukwikalert.com. They’ll be happy to review your release for posting.

In addition, you should give a courtesy call to a few of the selected media to make sure they received the information.

Electronic and Social Media

All news releases should be published on your Web site as well. Services like Google send out crawlers that search for keywords that help push your news item to the top of a search. Speaking of keywords, your release should use key industry words and phrases in both headlines and the body of your copy.

Also, post a link on your company’s Facebook page to your news release on your Web site, and issue a tweet to your followers.

If you have any questions regarding writing or issuing a news release, please contact me at Ron@thejacksongroup.biz.

Ron Jackson

Ron Jackson is co-founder of ABSG and president of The Jackson Group, a public relations agency specializing in aviation and FBO marketing. He has held management positions with Cessna Aircraft and Bozell Advertising and is the author of Mission Marketing: Creating Brand Value and co-author of Don’t Forget the Cheese!, the Ultimate FBO Customer Service Experience.